Layton's death leaves Parliament a different place

Mark Kennedy, Postmedia News08.21.2011

Flowers left on Parliament Hill in Ottawa Monday in memory of Jack Layton. Parliament will be a different place when the House returns from its summer recess, as Stephen Harper will face three interim opposition leaders.

Various videos of past interviews given by former NDP leader Jack Layton.

OTTAWA — Suddenly, with the death of one man, politics in Canada is vastly different.

No longer does Prime Minister Stephen Harper have a foe who symbolizes, from the left wing of the spectrum, the politics of hope and optimism.

Instead, at least for the time being, he will look across the aisle in the House of Commons and see three parties — the NDP, the Liberals and Bloc Quebecois — led by interim leaders.

Suddenly, with the death of Jack Layton, the equations that drive politics on Parliament Hill are much more uncertain. Will Harper get a free ride as he pursues his agenda as a majority government? Have the Liberals' hopes for a political resurgence now been renewed? Can the Bloc Quebecois, decimated because of Layton's "Orange Crush" in that province, come back?

Layton was a fixture on the federal scene for nearly a decade, becoming NDP leader in 2003 and arriving in Parliament a year later. With each successive election (four of them) Layton led his troops to electing larger contingents of MPs in Parliament.

In the wake of his stunning victory in May — forming the official Opposition — he promised to change political history in the years ahead.

Now, Parliament will be a different place as MPs return to the nation's capital in September. On Monday, experts offered a variety of predictions.

"The NDP has definitely lost a strong figure in Parliament," said Queen's University political scientist Kathy Brock. "He spoke out with a sense of compassion. And I think that's what Canadians really wanted to hear — a compassionate voice in Parliament.

"He was someone who understood the Conservatives, who could hold them to account and who also knew when to compromise with them, and when they could win battles together.

"I think he would have been a very strong critic, someone who would have held the government to account on key issues. He had great political instincts."

Still, Brock predicts that the NDP has enough talent among its MPs and advisers to form an effective opposition.

Historian Jack Granatstein said the plethora of interim leaders now on opposition benches will work in Harper's favour.

"It does give a majority government pretty much a free hand. I don't know what Harper will do with it. Will he try to ram things though and be totally arrogant? It's hard to say, but it wouldn't surprise me."

University of Calgary political scientist Tom Flanagan said that by earlier this year, Layton already had a strong legacy in place from revitalizing his party, and that the election results — 103 NDP MPs — was the "icing on the cake".

"He's become the stuff of legend. The final campaign, barnstorming with the cane and fighting the illness — this will now become a staple of Canadian history, as he led his party to such great victory. It's going to assume mythical proportions."

What's next for Canadian politics? Flanagan said Harper will have an easier run in the short term, but the implications for the next election in 2015 will hinge on who the opposition parties choose as their leaders.

"You could get almost anything out of this. Everything in modern politics depend on the choice of leader. Until you know who the leaders are it's kind of fruitless to speculate. The Liberals may pick another dud and the NDP may come up with a Superman. You just don't know."

Pollster Darrell Bricker, president of Ipsos Reid, said that surveys in the last election found Layton was either rivalling, or "eclipsing" Harper in public ratings on who would make the best prime minister.

"I think Canadians are going to look at it as a tragedy and a missed opportunity," Bricker said of Layton's death.

He said there's no doubt that Layton was the "spark" that led to the explosion of support for the NDP during the election.

"No doubt about it. When you go through the polling, it was his performance during the debates, his profile — happy, smiling Jack — that really brought people to take a look at the NDP."

Still, Bricker said Layton's long-term legacy appears to be the fact that he built a coalition of supporters — from Toronto urbanites to rural Quebecers — who now vote NDP.

And that, said Bricker, has sown the seeds for an outcome that appears inevitable — a two-party system.

"When you take a look at the people who did cross over and actually decide to vote NDP, they have a lot in common. Both in terms of the way they think — their world view — and what they look like demographically.

"He's actually consolidated a fairly cohesive, coherent political coalition on the left."